“It was all too much today – one great goal (Lampard) ignored and one totally, unambiguously offside goal allowed (Tevez). We watched some teams exploit their good fortune, and others collapse in the face of their bad luck. It’s become a World Cup scripted by Emile Zola. I am thinking of his utterly depressing novel L’Assommoir (the word means a dive-bar one goes to only to get hammered). At a key juncture in the story, the lovable drunk Copeau is doing his best to get his life together, but takes a bad fall at work and breaks his leg.” (From A Left Wing)